Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to rise today to speak to Bill C-7 and our government's response to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision.

I would like to thank all of the members who have contributed to this important debate. I particularly would like to thank the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for their hard work on this file, as well as the President of the Treasury Board for introducing this very timely legislation.

Two months ago, a horrific event took place when an assailant approached the armed forces recruiting detachment in my riding of Willowdale and injured two members of our armed forces. Along with local police, the leadership, professionalism, and expertise of the RCMP were instrumental in resolving the situation.

Our government is proudly committed to supporting the brave men and women of the RCMP, and I believe that the bill demonstrates our unwavering support for one of Canada's proudest institutions.

Last week, members of the House contributed to the debate surrounding Bill C-14, another important piece of legislation catalyzed by a Supreme Court decision. I am proud, once again, that our government is heeding a Supreme Court decision in an appropriate and balanced manner.

In its decision that found the previous labour-relations regime unconstitutional, the Supreme Court determined that the staff relations representative program, which was imposed upon RCMP members, violated their charter rights because it did not allow members any option for representation, nor did it provide an effective mechanism for dispute resolution.

Fundamentally, the proposed legislation would provide RCMP members and reservists with a process to choose their representatives, as well as the process by which they may independently and collectively pursue their workplace interests and objectives. Doing so would allow the RCMP to more effectively negotiate in regard to arbitration, unfair labour practices and grievances, and many other issues.

Recognizing that the RCMP is part of the federal government, Bill C-7 would extend to members exclusions that already apply to most other public servants, such as staffing, pensions, organization of work, and assignment of duties. The RCMP had previously been excluded from collective bargaining rights available to public service employees. The labour relations regulations did not provide a forum to address wage issues, lacked independence, and generally provided RCMP members with limited collective bargaining options.

Bill C-7, therefore, would not only ensure the constitutionality of our laws, but finally bring the RCMP within a recognize bargaining framework from which they have too long been excluded. Bill C-7 would align the RCMP's labour relations regime with that of other federal public servants, the provisions of which have been in place for over 40 years. In fact, the RCMP is the only police force in Canada without a collective agreement. The government has committed to working closely with our provincial and territorial partners, and the bill would bring RCMP labour relations in line with the standards in place at other levels of government.

We believe that strong internal regimes already exist to deal with the aspects of the collective bargaining process not explicitly dealt with by Bill C-7. For example, the RCMP pension advisory committee serves to administer, design, and fund member pension benefits. Labour-management relations committees are in place to deal with workplace conduct issues. Occupational health and safety committees help ensure the safety of RCMP employees. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and subsequent regulations establish internal recourse procedures, while the Public Service Labour Relations Act provides a regulatory framework for more technical matters.

We believe, therefore, that Bill C-7 would be a strong addition to the existing regimes governing the RCMP and its members, including internal policies and practices. Bill C-7 recognizes the important role of the RCMP as Canada's national force for ensuring the safety and security of Canadians.

Our government is committed to listening and engaging with Canadian on the issues that matter to them most. As with all legislation introduced by our government, Bill C-7 has benefited from in-depth consultations with those most likely to be impacted.

The consultation process was led by an independent third party, Mr. Alain Jolicoeur, who engaged extensively with not only the RCMP but with labour groups and other provincial and territorial partners to ensure that the proposed legislation is well rounded and pragmatic. I am proud to report that more than 9,000 regular members completed the survey and over 650 people participated in town hall sessions.

In a recent survey of RCMP members conducted by the independent consultant during the summer of 2015, most respondents expressed their support for the type of framework that has been put forward for the consideration of the House. We feel that the legislation responds appropriately to the Supreme Court's decision, recognizing the primacy of public safety and the crucial role the RCMP provides.

Mr. Speaker, of course, the member knows that there are certainly aspects of the legislation that Conservatives agree with, but we do not understand why the government would deny the right to vote in a secret ballot on certification to the hard-working members of the RCMP. These are people who put their lives on the line to defend our democracy.

Does the member not believe that they should have the same rights in the process of certification to vote by secret ballot that Canadians, in fact, enjoy when they elect their members of Parliament?

Mr. Speaker, that is obviously a very valid concern. As we know, this particular legislation was adopted after very extensive consultations. There were consultations with labour groups. There were consultations with members, and what was produced is something that reflects all of the priorities and elements that were suggested to us.

He mentioned earlier, and so did some of his colleagues, concern for RCMP members. Less than one-third responded to this survey and a very small percentage, actually, went to the town hall meetings. Do you think it's fair in your assumption that you did not give members of Parliament, whether it is your side—

Mr. Speaker, does the member think it is appropriate that members from all sides of the House were only given two days, after the release of the report, to go back and maybe talk to some of the RCMP members in their ridings to get feedback from them, since it was so important to the Liberal government to get that information initially?

Mr. Speaker, once again, I want to reiterate the reality that there were very extensive consultations. There were consultations with various levels of government, there were consultations with members of the RCMP, and from all of the information that I have been provided and had an opportunity to review, the majority actually voted in favour of the provisions that the member will find in the proposed bill.

Kevin LamoureuxLiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, it is worthy of note that not only had there been many hours of debate in the chamber on it, but even once it went to the committee stage there were a great number of presentations and most importantly there was a sense of co-operation, from what I understand, and the legislation was even amended in some fashion. That speaks volumes about the way we approach committees, that if there are some ideas on which consensus can be built, they will be successful. I understand that even though they were government amendments, they were initiatives that were suggested by the official opposition, in particular.

I am wondering if the member wants to comment on the fact that there is a Supreme Court deadline that we have to operate under, which is one of the reasons we are at the stage we are today, and that there was not only consultation but the government had an open process going through the system, which was demonstrated even at the committee stage.

Mr. Speaker, absolutely this was an issue that came before the Supreme Court. In deciding on the proposed legislation, there was a thorough examination of the decision rendered by the Supreme Court. In addition to that, to ensure that the members of the RCMP were well served, there were extensive consultations with an assortment of other groups, and most significantly with members of the RCMP.

Having said that, we appreciate full well that the Supreme Court had provided us with a window, a very tight time frame, within which we had to respond and come up with a balanced piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I want to sincerely thank the members of the Nanaimo detachment of the RCMP for the work they do every day in our community to keep us safe. There are 151 sworn members of the RCMP who form the ranks in Nanaimo. They join over 18,000 members from across the country. It is important to remember when we are talking about the bill that it does not just affect 151 people in my riding. It does not just affect 18,000 officers across the country. It affects families, spouses, grandparents, children, their classmates, and our entire community.

I am going to take a moment to say how proud I am of the work that the RCMP members do in Nanaimo. They have a fantastic bike patrol unit. They are really the eyes and ears on the ground in our community. They work municipal traffic. They have a criminal intelligence unit and a K-9 dog unit. They work hard on victim services. When we do homelessness counts in our community, they know every citizen who is living rough. They know where they are. They keep track of them. They are very good people. They are part of the fabric of our community. They host open houses to show the public what is happening behind the scenes. They fundraise for victim services. They proudly attend community events in our riding, such as the marine festival parade, and they ensure that roads remain safe during Ladysmith's Christmas light-up festival.

With that backdrop of our community, collective bargaining is about respect. It is about fostering respect for workers and their rights, creating a safe working environment, and rewarding workers for their dedication and growth. It allows employees to have a voice and enables employers to listen. The cornerstone of collective bargaining is respect. It is that simple; it is respect.

Collective bargaining is a right that is enjoyed by a vast majority of federal workers, and those rights generally allow workers to be part of the conversation about staffing levels, deployment and relocation, and sexual harassment, except for the RCMP.

Janelle Canning-Lue and her husband recently wrote to me about Bill C-7. They are both serving members of the RCMP, and they have collectively served in 12 posts in four divisions. They say that they view Bill C-7 as a slap in the face. She says that instead of empowering them, it legislates the takeaway of fundamental rights of negotiation in the areas of officer safety and working conditions. She is not wrong to feel that way. The negotiation of officer safety is a right that every other police association in the country is granted. So much for respect.

The RCMP members and the NDP support and recognize that meaningful collective bargaining should extend well beyond the issue of pay and benefits alone. There must be a mechanism in the bill to support improved workplace safety, and to finding a resolution to the unresolved issue of sexual harassment complaints by members of the RCMP. The extent of sexual harassment problems in the force has been extensively documented, and has been widely covered in the media. Just yesterday, a senior member of RCMP management was charged with sexual harassment. This followed a class-action lawsuit of 400 RCMP members on sexual harassment in the force. How especially troubling and appalling it is that this was explicitly excluded from the bill. It is a great failure.

Rural officers in particular have concerns around the unresolved issues with respect to workplace safety. I think of the terrible tragedies in Mayerthorpe and Moncton, where there was terrible loss of life of RCMP members, and there are remaining issues as to the extent to which they were protected. These men and women stand up for us and we should stand up for them.

Another failure of the bill is around uniforms. The prevention of bargaining with management about the selection, function, maintenance, and replacement of uniform pieces does not make sense. RCMP members are using this equipment daily. The bill will restrict them from using their front-line knowledge about the safest and most efficient pieces of equipment. That kind of inside knowledge could be invaluable and could save time, money, and most importantly lives.

Second, employee transfers should not be removed from the bargaining process. Transfers should be a part of the conversation that takes into account workers' input to ensure they are being fairly administered.

A transfer can be a life-changing event for officers, their families, and our communities. In Canada, we have many remote areas with very high costs of living. We have very isolated communities as well. Some of these communities have a real lack of access to basic necessities, like affordable, safe child care. Therefore, members need to be involved in those decisions. They need to have that be a matter for collective bargaining.

Corporal Clover Johns in Nanaimo wrote to me saying that the removal of the restrictions on transfers and equipment would not hamper RCMP operations, but in fact would likely improve them, allowing more harmonious problem-solving, strong employer-employee relations, and higher member morale. Working together to solve problems creates strong employer-employee relations and higher member morale. That is respect, and that is what collective bargaining should look like.

The motto of the RCMP is Maintien Le Droit, or Maintain the Rights. Bill C-7 would provide less rights for members of the RCMP than other police.

Unfortunately, the government has failed to adopt the amendments that the NDP put forward at committee. These were reasonable amendments, such as allowing workplace safety and sexual harassment concerns to become matters for collective bargaining and arbitration between RCMP members and management. We should hear those concerns, and we should act upon them. Enabling meaningful collective bargaining will not only benefit the members and their institution, but it will benefit all Canadians.

The government's bill excludes everything from collective bargaining, except pay and benefits. I expressed great concern about this during the debate before second reading. Yet, I voted in favour at that stage with the optimism that these amendments could be made at committee.

I heard most witnesses at committee express great concern about what was left out of this collective bargaining agreement. The government failed to expand collective bargaining by agreeing to the amendments that the NDP proposed at committee. In our view, this means the bill fails to live up to the court's direction. Now the government has just voted to shut down debate on this important bill.

The government could have chosen to make a bad bill better. It could have done that at committee, but closing down debate today is the final process failure. Shutting down debate does not help meet the court deadline. Shutting down debate just reinforces the failure of process on this. The government has already failed to meet the court ruling, really, because it failed to write legislation that would give RCMP members access to true collective bargaining.

Today, I will vote in favour of the report stage amendments proposed by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. They do not go as far as the amendments that the NDP proposed at committee, but they are our last chance to repair this flawed bill, given the government's refusal to truly extend the right to collective bargaining to RCMP members.

If the amendments are not approved today by the government and by the House, I will vote against the bill.

Finally, Corporal Clover Johns from Nanaimo reminds me that members of the House have what RCMP members do not. We hold the power to listen and to voice their concerns when they were not afforded an opportunity to so. We have the power to enact just laws that enhance the national police force, to treat its members fairly, and advance public safety in Canada.

We should do that today, and we should guarantee members of the police in Canada equitable, open, and harmonious labour practices.

Madam Speaker, I want to ask the member a question about the secret ballot.

The NDP has expressed the concern in the past that secret ballots somehow can lead to intimidation. I have never really understood how that is possible. However, particularly when we are talking about a public sector organization, the RCMP, would the NDP support the idea of ensuring that RCMP officers have access to a secret ballot? If not, why not? What is the problem with a secret ballot in this context when we use secret ballots to elect our members of Parliament?

I hear a broken record, Madam Speaker. I am absolutely proud to live in a community that is so well-served by the RCMP. Every day we see how well its members stand up for us. I will stand up for them and with them with great gratitude for their work. I urge every member of the House to offer RCMP members across the county the respect they give to us. We should work together to support them.

Madam Speaker, two members approached me about some items they would have liked to have seen included. When I asked about this, there was mention of large consultation. I was also told that the template was similar to that in other police forces, about which I would not know. There are mechanisms in the RCMP to deal with the concerns of members, although I was told by one member that those mechanisms did not work.

Madam Speaker, the points do not line up with what I heard from members in my riding. I received a lot of mail on this. They uniformly expressed their concern with the process and with the content. They felt they had been discriminated against all these years and that it had taken a court case with a strong ruling to identify that they were not being treated in a manner equivalent to other federal workers and other police officers.

They continue to express their great disappointment with this bill and they urge us to vote against it. They would rather deal with the courts than have inadequate legislation.

Madam Speaker, I want to recognize the important work my friend from Nanaimo—Ladysmith has done as the NDP status of women critic.

Looking at the bill through the lens of her critic portfolio, what kind of message does it send to the strong women in the RCMP that harassment has been kept from the bargaining process? I am curious as to her thoughts on that.

Madam Speaker, this is a circular question and something that is so important to the country moving forward.

Members on the status of women committee, who have been working on the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls file and gender-based violence, are concerned about the under-reporting of gender-based or sexual crimes. We are afraid it has to do with a lack of trust in our national police force. If RCMP members themselves are unable to freely complain and have their complaints about sexual harassment dealt with and adjudicated in the same way as any other labour force, then how can we expect the more vulnerable members of our communities to have faith in the police force? Our country has to grapple with this key issue. We have a lot of work to do in this area.

Our police need to be empowered. Our members need to be empowered. That in turn may well create more faith in the system and may empower the most vulnerable members of our society who are repeatedly victimized.

Madam Speaker, I want to respond to the specific points raised on April 18 by the House leader of the NDP regarding Motion No. 43.

The NDP House leader referenced Standing Order 68(4) and O'Brien and Bosc, at page 722, to make his argument that only ministers could instruct a committee to prepare and bring in a bill.

Standing Order 68(4) is the standing order that sets out a procedure that allows a minister to consider a motion under government orders that instructs a committee to prepare and bring in a bill.

The NDP House leader argued that because there was a mechanism for ministers to do this, a private member could not. I would agree with the NDP House leader that a private member could not move a motion of instruction under government orders, and that is a given, but to make the case that a private member under no condition can instruct a committee to prepare and bring in a bill is a false argument.

The reference he made to O'Brien and Bosc on page 722 states:

A committee may be instructed to prepare and bring in a bill or a committee may be appointed for that specific purpose. Motions to this effect may be moved only by a Minister.

That statement is accompanied by footnote 65 that references Standing Order 68(4). We already know that Standing Order 68(4) is a provision exclusively for the use of ministers. The O'Brien and Bosc reference is there to explain that only a minister can propose a motion under government orders to instruct a committee to prepare and bring in a bill pursuant to Standing Order 68(4).

Motion No. 43 does not reference Standing Order 68(4). It does not concern itself in any way what a minister can and cannot do during government orders or whenever. It concerns itself with an instruction to a committee by a private member during private members' business and then sets out a procedure to make it happen. In part it reads:

...and, that the tabling of a report pursuant to this order shall be an order to bring in a bill based thereon; and when the Member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, in proposing a motion for first reading of a bill, states that the bill is in response to the recommendations contained in a report pursuant to this order, the second reading and subsequent stages of the bill shall be considered under Private Members' Business and the bill shall be placed immediately at the bottom of the Order of Precedence of Private Members' Business as a votable item in the name of the Member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.

Footnote 65 from O'Brien and Bosc also references a time when there was a standing order setting out procedures for private members to instruct a committee to prepare and bring in a bill, but it was removed because it was seldom used. Therefore, now we no longer have a mechanism in our permanent rules to allow private members to instruct a committee to prepare and bring in a bill. That does not mean that we cannot create one. There is no impediment to a private member proposing standing order changes to the House, whether they are permanent, sessional, and/or special and specific to one item.

If you are looking for an example, Madam Speaker, I refer you to the motion from the last Parliament that proposed:

That Standing Order 11(2) be replaced with the following: The Speaker or the Chair of Committees of the Whole, after having called the attention of the House, or of the Committee, to the conduct of a Member who persists in irrelevance, or repetition, including during responses to oral questions, may direct the Member to discontinue his or her intervention, and if then the Member still continues to speak, the Speaker shall name the Member or, if in Committee of the Whole, the Chair shall report the Member to the House.

Who proposed that? The NDP House leader. Just because Motion No. 43 is exclusive to a specific item and proposes a temporary mechanism to allow a private member to instruct a committee to prepare and bring in a bill does not make it any different from a motion proposing to permanently change the specific procedure of the House as the NDP proposed in the 41st Parliament.

We are, after all, masters of our own procedures, provided we do not go beyond anything conferred upon us by the constitution. Motion No. 43 clearly does not violate the constitution. It is a good idea with a workable process that is within the scope of the authority of the House and that of a private member.